Blue Moon Rising
by Ivory Novelist
Summary: Marty, Maggie, and Rust become a thing. AU set in '95, after the false close of the Dora Lange murder case. Asexual!Sex-Repulsed!Rust. Queerplatonic friendship between Rust/Marty, Rust/Maggie. Open sexual relationship between Marty/Maggie.
1. Chapter 1

**AN**: Asexual!Rust. Queerplatonic friendship between Rust and Marty, Rust and Maggie. Some kind of polyamorous triangle between Rust, Marty, and Maggie.

**Warning:** Internalized anti-asexuality. References to coercive sex, dubious consent, suicidal ideation.

* * *

Louisiana

1995

* * *

It starts with the lawnmower.

Marty comes back inside after Rust leaves, and Maggie gives him that look. _You're an asshole. _

"What?" he says.

"I need to talk to you," she says.

They go into the master bedroom, leaving the girls in front of the TV.

"What is your problem?" Maggie asks him, keeping her voice lowered.

"What are you talking about?" says Marty. "What did I do?"

"I'm not blind, Marty. You were mad at him. What are you, jealous?"

"No. Of course not. I just don't like another man mowing my lawn. This is my home, it's my lawn, and there's no reason for him to be here unless I invite him."

"Jesus," says Maggie. "He was doing something nice to show gratitude for our hospitality. You haven't taken that mower out of the garage in weeks. I asked him to stay because, you know what, Marty? That man is lonely."

"Ah, God..."

"Maybe you're not paying attention, or maybe you just don't care. But I do, all right? You said so yourself, he doesn't have any friends. He lives alone. And after what happened to his daughter and his marriage, I can't imagine how hard it must be for him. Unless he's done something to you, you should have a little compassion."

"He can take care of himself, all right? He's a grown man," Marty says. "And you don't know him like I do. You aren't the one driving him around all over Louisiana, listening to him say crazy things. If you heard him, you wouldn't want him around the girls."

"Oh, please. He's been nothing but polite to the girls, and to me. He's better when he's around us. He _needs_ connection. He's a human being. You're the closest thing he has to a friend, and half the time, you're just plain mean to him."

"How would you know?"

"Because I know you, Marty. You didn't even have to try throwing him out, and he knew you wanted him gone. How nice could you possibly be, when it's just the two of you?"

"He ain't a ray of sunshine either."

Maggie, her arms now crossed, rolls her eyes and walks out of the bedroom.

Marty stands there with his hands on his hips, feeling like the bad guy again. He hates it when Maggie makes him the bad guy. And now he wonders if he should feel guilty about shooing Rust off the way he did.

* * *

Rust has had sex with a handful of women throughout his life, but he doesn't need it. He's never particularly liked it, either. Something about it feels unnatural to him, uncomfortable psychologically, like he's putting on an act. There have been times where he fucked his girlfriend, his wife, a date and had to go sit in the bathroom by himself afterward, trying to breathe through the shit feeling. There have even been times when he's jerking off in the shower because he can't help it, hating the whole business, wishing his libido would die and leave him in peace.

He's intellectualized sex in the abstract and in the context of his own life too many times to count, in the privacy of his own mind, and he realizes that it's a performance expected of him—as a man, as a human—the price of romantic connection that seems to be the only available opportunity for companionship and love. He asked Claire to marry him because she was the closest friend he'd ever had, and he thought he wanted domesticity, the nuclear family, the American Dream that now makes him scoff at how delusional and desperate people are to escape their essential isolation from all other life forms.

He lost his virginity at sixteen, to an older woman who knew what she was doing. He came pretty quick and pretty hard, but it wasn't a good experience. He hadn't been sure he actually wanted to go through with it before he did. Since then, he's fucked women just because they wanted it, because he wanted them to care, because he needed to get rid of his erection, because he wanted children, because he needed to be touched, because he was lonely, because he thought that maybe it would give him whatever he was missing inside, something he could never identify. He's never had sex for its own sake. Most of the orgasms he's had in his life have been eclipsed by an intense sensation of emptiness that overwhelms him immediately after. He might even call it disappointment.

He had good sex with Claire, before Sofia's death. He had terrible sex with her too, after. Even when it was good, he could've gone without it. He never tried telling her that because he was smart enough to know it would've ended badly.

Maybe he was born with some kind of disorder. They say the drive to fuck is intrinsically human, but then again, self-delusion seems to be too. So he doesn't feel that bad about deviating from the norm.

* * *

It isn't until after they kill Ledoux and DeWall that Marty notices: Rust's grown on him. It doesn't make a lick of sense. Rust Cohle is the biggest prick that Marty's ever met, and Marty could rattle off at least ten different things about the man that irritates him. But Rust's grown on him. Maybe it's being partners. Maybe it's spending so much of their time alone together. Maybe it's the fact that they share the secret of what really happened at the Ledoux property. Maybe it's a simple combination of Marty now having the highest close rate of his career and Rust saying something halfway funny once in a while. Whatever the reason, Marty remembers what Maggie told him that day Rust mowed their lawn and gets to thinking.

They're sitting across from each other at their desks one afternoon, when Marty asks Rust if he wants to come over for dinner again. Rust looks up at him, pauses, then nods and says, "Sure."

"Seven o'clock," says Marty. "Like last time."

Rust shows up on time, sober, still in his work clothes and wearing his jacket. He brings Maggie flowers for the table, which pleases her, and things go a hell of a lot better than they did the first time.

After the girls have gone to bed and it's just the three adults at the table with a bottle of red wine, there's a moment where Marty looks across at Rust on the opposite end and Rust meets his gaze and something new occurs to Marty: a strange sense of balance, like there was always an empty spot between him and Maggie and now that Rust's filling it, they can all breathe a little easier.

Rust looks down at the table and makes a small throat-clearing noise. Marty can see out of the corner of his eye Maggie glancing between the two men, as if she's just seen what Marty's feeling.

"I better get going," Rust says. "Thank you for the meal, Maggie. It was great."

"You're welcome," she says, a new, sweet warmth in her tone. Like peach pie.

"We'll have you over again sometime," says Marty. "Soon."

Rust nods. "'preciate it."

Marty walks him out to his truck and stands at the driver's door once Rust's behind the wheel with his window rolled down. "Hey, ah—been meaning to ask you, what do you think of spring cleaning?"

"Why?" says Rust.

"Well, I just figured, maybe you want to take care of it around here, seeing as how you liked mowing the lawn."

Rust actually smiles. "See you Monday, Marty."

He starts the truck and backs out of the driveway, and Marty watches him go until his tail lights turn a corner.

* * *

Maggie was raised a good, church-going girl. She's been a faithful wife since her wedding day. She votes Republican. She's doing her best to raise her daughters to be moral, honest people. She decided to give Marty a second chance after their trial separation because she never wanted her kids to come from a broken home, and part of her, the part that's been in love with Marty since she was twenty-one, wants to believe that he can change.

But Maggie can think for herself. She does allow herself to question things. She allows herself to be imperfect, to consider what she wants regardless of Marty, to set aside the _should's_ and listen to her heart.

She's having Sunday brunch with the women she knows through her church, all of them wives and mothers in their 30s and 40s, when one of them starts telling the group a story she heard of a man involved with two women who not only know about each other but live with him together. There's four children, and nobody's even married. Maggie's friends twitter about how outrageous it is, and she sips on her lemonade, at once torn between her instinctual monogamy and curious about how else a situation like that might look.

Marty promised her that he would never cheat again, and he's starting to try harder, to be a good man. Maggie wants that, wants him to be faithful to her, but the seed of doubt was planted soon as that trashy paralegal came to her door. It's already sprouted roots. She can't rip it out.

She lies awake in bed several nights after that, Marty snoring softly beside her, and tries to imagine taking a different approach to her marriage. She won't have another woman moving into her house, fucking Marty in her bed. She doesn't want Marty falling in love with someone else. She can't imagine having sex with another man, while being Marty's wife—even if he could theoretically live with it.

She thinks of Rust. He's a good-looking man, but she's never been attracted to him sexually. He's not her type, and even if he was, she's more entrenched in her ties to Marty than she cares to admit. She doesn't want to fuck Rust and knows that Marty would sooner get a divorce than let her do it. But she thinks of Rust because he's become their friend, hers and Marty's, and she likes him better than all the other colleagues Marty's brought around since she married him. She thinks of Rust because she knows that he wants the Harts' marriage to survive, because he thought of her kids when she was planning on ending it, because he is just as aware of Marty's faults as she is and still sticks up for him even when Marty's not there to see it.

She thinks of Rust in his house with no furniture. She thinks of him at her dinner table. She thinks of him shying away from her offers to find him a date and his admission that he doesn't want any more children.

She doesn't know where she's going with this, but she can feel an idea shaping up in her head, mysterious and indescribable.

* * *

Rust has never been in love. But he craves love. Not the crazy, egocentric bullshit most people fool themselves into thinking is love. Not the lust-sex-romantic-theatrics cocktail that's more of an acid trip than his own post-drug abuse hallucinations and synesthesia put together. No, what he wants is what he felt the first time he saw his daughter, bundled up in a hospital blanket and no bigger than a football. What he wants is what he felt the first time she said "Da." What he wants is what he saw every time he came home from work and her eyes lit up like he was the greatest thing to ever happen in human history. Sometimes, he thinks he just wants her—and depending on the day, he either accepts that for the cruel and hopeless longing it is or rejects it out of his own pathetic desperation for hope. Hope that if he doesn't kill himself in the next five years, he'll eventually feel better.

Sofia wasn't the only person Rust loved. He loved Claire, until he couldn't anymore. He loved his pop, even after he left the man to go his own way and realized that maybe he was growing up into someone his pop couldn't like. He loved his mom as much as he could without feeling the unresolved sting of her abandonment, to the border of anger.

He's had a few friends, all of them men except for one, who he cared about a great deal. But he's not sure he's ever had a friend he loved. He doesn't count his ex-wife because she saw him as her lover, her husband, not her friend. And Rust himself sees sex and friendship as two different forces, usually opposed. From time to time, he's thought about what it might be like to love a man in friendship, the kind of friendship where there's none of that macho pretension that saturates police culture, the kind that's got more to it than shootin' the shit after work at the local watering hole and coming over for Super Bowl Sunday.

Nietzsche wrote, "The friend should be the festival of the earth to you..." He himself barely had friends. He believed that superior friendship was rare, and simple-minded people would blame that on his own lack of friends. But Rust knows better. You don't have a string of philosophers from different schools come to the same conclusion about something over a three thousand year period by accident.

* * *

The Harts are at the church's annual Easter picnic, watching their daughters hunt for eggs on the green with the other children, when Maggie says,

"Would you be happier in this marriage if you could sleep with other people?"

Marty turns his head and looks at her. "What? No. Of course not. I told you—"

"I know what you told me. I know you've been trying to change, Marty, and things have been better... But if this is going to work, we can't kid ourselves."

"Where is this coming from?" he says. "I swear to you, I haven't done anything wrong with anybody since we got back together. I promised you I wouldn't."

"Yeah. And how long are you going to keep that promise this time?" She says it without any anger or bitterness. Just an honest question, in a soft voice.

"I'm doing everything I can to earn your trust. All right? I don't know what else you want from me."

"You haven't answered the question," Maggie says, holding onto her beer by the sweaty bottleneck.

"What the hell kinda question is it, Maggie? Are you picking a fight or what?"

"No. I'm asking you seriously. There are men in this world who can't have sex with just one woman the rest of their life, no matter who she is. No matter how much they love her. If you're one of them, then you're going to cheat again, and I realize now that if I expect you to be something other than what you are, I'm helping you do it. I'm not fond of the idea of you screwing around with other women, Marty—but what I can't stand is the lying. The dishonesty. That's the real betrayal."

"So, so, what are you saying? That you're giving me permission to have affairs?"

"I'm saying we should consider our options."

The conversation doesn't pick up again until they're driving home, just the two of them in the car because the girls went off with friends. They're a few minutes from their street, when Marty works his mouth and says, "What are you really thinking? How would it work? I get to—to go cruising for tail as long as I give you a heads up first? Am I supposed to let em know I'm married?"

Maggie stares out her window, sitting in the passenger seat next to him, at the houses in their neighborhood and the trees standing in front yards. "I'm not going to encourage you to fuck other people all the time," she says. "But if you feel like you have to, we can talk about it. It's probably best that I don't know all the details. There would be rules. No hookers. The girls can't know about any of it. You'd have to get tested for STDs on a regular basis."

He's quiet for a few beats. Thinking. "What about you?" he says.

"What about me?"

"Would you go looking for someone else? You want to fuck other men?"

"I don't know," she says, after a pause. "I think if you have the freedom to see other people, I should have the same. But I can't say if or how much I would act on it."

"So, if I decide I don't like you getting with someone else..."

"Then, you can either become monogamous again or walk away."

Marty pulls the car into their driveway and parks it, but the two of them sit there, not looking at each other.

"This isn't right," he says, after a minute or two. "What we're entertaining... it isn't the way good people live."

"No, good people cheat behind each other's back and then get divorced," says Maggie.

Marty exhales through his nostrils.

Maggie finally turns her head and looks at him. "There's something else I want. In exchange."

"What?" he says, making eye contact with her.

"Rust."

Marty frowns softly, confusion giving way to disbelief. "Rust? You want to fuck Rust?"

Maggie shakes her head. "No. Not now. Not unless it feels natural, for him and for me. I want... I want him closer. To us. To our family. I want him to be a part of it."

"How do you mean? You want him over for dinner more?"

Maggie actually smiles with her teeth, almost shakes her head. Sometimes, Marty is so simple, she can't believe it. "Maybe. But that's not what I mean. I mean, I want it to feel like he's a part of us. I want him to feel like this—" she looks through the windshield and the window in her door at the house and Marty's lawn, "is home."

Marty blinks several times and says, "I have no idea what in the hell that means. He's a grown man, not a kid. You can't adopt him, and if you don't want to fuck him, then what else is there?"

"I don't know, Marty, friendship? Family? I'm not saying I think he should move in, but he could be more to us. To you. And me."

"You're talking as if you know he's on board with this. Whatever it is. Maybe you haven't noticed, over tea time, but Rust Cohle is not big on people. He lives the way he does because he wants to. What makes you think he's going to like the idea of being some kinda weird third wheel here?"

"You let me worry about talking to him. Do we have a deal or not?"

Marty and Maggie look at each other across the front seats of the car for a long stretch, neither of them sure, until Marty nods.

"Deal."

* * *

Rust is sitting in his living room, facing the wall where he pins all of the file clippings of whatever case he's currently working on, smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee. He's got the mug set on his knee and elbow of his smoking arm on the metal armrest of his fold up chair. His eyes track across the photographs and maps and charts of this three-child homicide case, and he thinks about the fact that he doesn't have any pictures of Sofia around here. Of the ones he and Claire had, Rust didn't keep many. What he's got, he stashed in a cigar box that he keeps in the closet of the master bedroom he doesn't use. He hasn't looked at them in a while.

She'd be almost ten now. He's tried to picture what she'd look like, what kind of personality she'd have, but he knows none of it's true. He can only guess, and he's probably wrong when he does. So, he remembers her the way she was.

Somebody knocks on his door. He gets up to answer it after a second, cigarette in his lips and coffee mug in hand.

Maggie's outside, standing there in a floral print dress with buttons down the front. Rust lets her in and goes back to his chair.

"Something wrong?" he says.

She stays on the kitchen tile, back of her waist against the counter edge, facing him. "No," she says. "I just need to tell you something, and it's not the kind of thing you say over the phone."

Rust eyes her, uncertain, sipping on his coffee.

"Marty and I have come to an agreement," Maggie says. "We're both free to see other people, as long as it's casual and we're honest about it. It was my idea. I'm not looking for someone new, but I know Marty. It just seems like the sensible thing to do."

Not much startles Rust, but this is one of those times.

"You don't approve?"

"I don't have an opinion one way or another," Rust says. "I'm just surprised at you. You're not as conservative you look."

"Yeah, well... Conservatism hasn't given me the marriage I wanted. Anyway—I wanted to tell you in case you see Marty with someone else or he mentions it. You don't have to feel like you're covering for him."

Rust nods and looks away, at the wall in front of him. He thinks the move is smart, however unconventional. He knows a pussy hound when he sees one, and as much as he wanted Maggie to take Marty back, Rust didn't believe that his partner would stay away from other women forever.

Maggie's wringing her hands, watching him. "Can I ask you something?"

"What?"

"Do you like being alone?"

Rust glances at her and takes a drag on his Camel. "Whether I do or I don't is irrelevant," he says. "I did the marriage and kids thing once. I'm not doing it again."

"Why does it have to be one or the other?" says Maggie. "What if there's a way to not be alone, without being married or having kids?"

Now Rust looks at her straight on. He can't get a read on her or what she's really talking about. It unsettles him. "What do you want, Maggie?" he says.

Maggie hesitates only for a moment, then beelines for Rust and kneels on the carpet in front of him. She covers his hand that's wrapped around his coffee mug and looks into his eyes, some kind of new energy in her.

"You're a good man, Rust. I trust you. Marty trusts you. I know he can be rough around the edges, but I've been with him for eleven years, I know him, and I can tell that he cares about you in a way he hasn't really cared about the other friends he's made on the job. He likes you, Rust. I like you too."

Rust stares at her, speechless, suddenly feeling overwhelmed and vulnerable. He can't tell if she wants to fuck him or not, and now he's nervous. He sure as hell doesn't want to fuck her, no matter what Marty thinks.

"I know I'm probably not making any sense," says Maggie, her other hand on Rust's knee. "I'm not sure I can describe what it is I'm trying to pitch here. I just... want you know that Marty and I are here for you. If you need anything, you can ask us."

"Okay," he says, voice deep and husky, like he's talking to someone dangerous. "I hear you."

Maggie has a hint of a smile on her face, and her hand stays warm on Rust's knee. Her eyes gleam and she starts to rise. She leans up to Rust and kisses him on the cheek. Tender and lingering. Her hand on his neck, fingertips over his jaw. He closes his eyes in spite of himself. It's been so long since he had anything like tenderness in his life.

She starts to pull away slightly, then kisses his mouth—tentative, testing. Rust tenses, still holding onto his mug and his cigarette, leaning back in his chair. He doesn't want to go down this road with her. He also doesn't want to reject her after what she's told him. He welcomes the touch—he's starved for it, no matter how much sex he's had since his divorce—but if he lets it go on, she'll probably take it further.

Maggie trails her hand lightly down his chest, touching her forehead to his now without kissing him. She makes it to his belt buckle and opens her eyes, looking at his face. "Do you want to?"

Rust's dick starts to tingle. He can't help it.

"Marty said it's okay."

Rust swallows and musters up the courage to tell her, "Look, I appreciate you trying to help, but this isn't what I need. Sorry."

Maggie nods and straightens up, standing in front of him now. "You let me know if you change your mind."

She starts to head for the front door, and Rust breathes with a relief before calling out.

"Maggie."

She stops and looks back at him. "Did you mean everything you said?"

"Yes, I meant it. Of course, I did." She pauses. "Honestly, Rust, I don't need to have sex with you. I'm offering because I know how men are. If I can get you to feel a little less lonely, I'll do what it takes. Marty'll back me up on it."

Rust draws on his cigarette, coffee now lukewarm, and says, "Don't try to fuck me out of pity."

Maggie looks at him and nods, then goes on her way.

* * *

Marty goes back to the strip joint where Tyrone Weems' ex-girlfriend dances. He picks a redhead knockout with legs a mile long and watches her over his beer, giving away his ones and fives gradually. It's been a while since he picked up a stripper. College twelve or thirteen years ago, before he met Maggie. Part of him wants the redhead just to prove to himself he can still score in this scenario.

But the longer he sits there, the more his interest wanes. He thinks about Maggie and how it's been weeks since they fooled around. Thinks about the way they were when they first got together. Thinks about those first few years they were married. Couldn't get enough of each other. Had sex all the time, all over their apartment and then at the house, before she got pregnant with Audrey. He thought she was the hottest woman in the state, totally out of his league. He'd won the lottery, marrying her.

The thing with Lisa wasn't about him not loving Maggie. Wasn't about Maggie being unattractive to him. Wasn't about him lacking desire for his wife. Sure as hell wasn't about wanting out of his marriage. Lisa knew from the start Marty wasn't going to leave Maggie. That's why she had to go flaunting her new boyfriend in front of him, wasn't it?

Now that Marty's been cleared to screw whoever he wants, he's starting to wonder what it is about Maggie, that she can feel satisfied by him alone even now, and why he can't be that way too. Sex between them hasn't had any heat to it for years, since before Maisie was born. Maybe that's inevitable, when you're with someone for so long, when kids come into the picture. It's not that he doesn't like the sex he has with Maggie. It's just, he misses that rush of acting on first-time lust. He likes the way it feels to be wanted, not because of love or commitment, but just because of how he looks and how he fucks.

He's down to the last third of his beer mug when he looks up at the redhead and realizes he isn't going to try to make a move. Not tonight. He finishes his drink, leaves a tip on the bar, and walks out.

He told Maggie he was going to be out late and probably wouldn't make it for dinner. She didn't ask him where he was going to be. It's only six-twenty when he leaves the strip club, and he could make dinner if he wanted... But before he notices that he's doing it, he starts heading to Rust's place.

The white porch light's on and Rust's truck is parked in the driveway. Marty pulls his car alongside the curb in front of the house and kills the engine, then almost starts it again to go home.

Instead, he finds himself knocking on the front door, no idea in hell what he's here for.

Rust answers and gives him a once over, before letting him in without a word.

They go into the living room, where Rust's mattress remains on the carpet. He's been working, if the empty chair facing the wall full of case file shit's any indication. There's an ashtray on the floor next to the chair's leg, and Rust's got a cigarette in his mouth. He stays on his feet.

"What are you doing here?" he asks Marty.

"I was just passing through, on my way back from—somewhere. Thought I'd stop by. See if you wanted to come over for dinner."

"Not tonight."

Marty nods and doesn't speak for a minute, as Rust smokes and looks off into the distance.

"Maggie said she talked to you," Marty starts. "About our new arrangement."

"She did," says Rust. "Not that it's any of my business."

"I guess she figured... we spend enough time together, you were going to notice sooner or later, if I... met someone. Didn't want you to feel like you were partaking in a lie. Or something."

"Yeah, well."

Marty hesitates, unaware of how much Maggie told Rust. "Did she, uh, mention anything else?"

Rust glances at him, looks away again. Aloof son of a bitch. "Listen, Marty," he says. "I'm not a charity case. Your wife may be well-intentioned, but I don't need to be dragged into the middle of whatever you two got going on as a part of some misguided attempt to change my life."

"Nobody said you were, a charity case. I don't know what she told you, but the way she and I talked about it, we agreed that we would—that we were going to watch out for you. Be your friends. Do you grasp that concept, Rust? Friends?"

Rust looks at him, dark. "Do I look like I need friends, Marty?"

"Yes," Marty says. "As a matter of fact, you look like you're in serious fuckin need of some friends. You don't feel like dating anyone right now, fine, but Jesus Christ, Rust. Look at yourself. Be as honest as you think you are, look me in the eye, and tell me you aren't the least bit depressed about the state of your personal life."

Rust blinks, sluggish, and puffs on his cigarette. "Since when is depression solved by friendship?" he says.

Marty rolls his eyes hard. Feels like he's talking to a God damn teenager. "Oh, for fuck's sake."

Then, he does something that surprises him as much as it surprises Rust.

He closes the space between them and pulls his partner into a hug. Wraps both his arms around Rust's lean frame and just holds onto him.

Rust freezes, his own arms down at his sides, cigarette shrinking in his lips. He closes his eyes, his breath hitches, and a feeling flashes through him—something synesthetic he can't identify. He hasn't been hugged in years.

"Now, is this so bad?" Marty says, voice low in Rust's ear.

Rust doesn't answer. Slowly, he folds his arms around Marty, presses his palms flat to Marty's broad back, tucks his chin into Marty's shoulder. He's clamping on his cigarette too hard, almost biting it.

Marty stands there, hugging Rust, startled that Rust's hugging him back. Awed by the way he feels the other man's body respond: Rust's muscles softening, posture relaxing, an alien vulnerability revealing itself that he couldn't have imagined Rust possessing. Not after all the violence he's seen the other man engage in.

It feels like the man's giving up, finally surrendering after going strong and alone for too long. Feels like if Marty lets him go, Rust's going to slide to the floor like Jell-O.

"Jesus," Marty says, quiet. "You all right?"

Rust doesn't make a sound. He can barely breathe. He should be embarrassed, uncomfortable, scrambling to recover his image—but instead, he's just overwhelmed by the sensation of something as kind and soft as this hug. From Marty Hart, no less.

"Come to dinner, okay?" Marty says, still not letting go. "Fuck the case for one night and just be a human being."

Ash spills onto Marty's shirt from the end of Rust's cigarette. Rust curls his fingers into the fabric of the shirt, feels it give, keeps his eyes shut and holds on. He feels like he might lose it any moment, have his knees buckle under him the second Marty pulls away or faint from the overstimulation of his senses.

"Rust."

"I need to sit down," Rust says, slurring his words as if drunk.

Marty walks him backward to the chair and sticks him in it, really freaked out now, resting one hand on Rust's shoulder. "Want me to get you some water? What's going on?"

Rust takes the cigarette stub out of his mouth, arms limp over the sides of the armrests, and breathes. He shakes his head, looking like he might be sick.

"Rust," Marty says. "Talk to me."

"'m fine. 'm fine."

Marty looks at him as Rust calms down. "Shit, man. You allergic to hugs?"

Rust chuffs and almost smiles. He realizes his hand's shaking. "Don't know if I have much of an appetite," he says.

"Then, you can come watch my TV, seeing as how you don't even fucking have one of those in here. I'm not leaving you like this."

"Fine."

Marty was expecting some remark about how TV's for dumbasses. The fact that Rust's agreeing with him so easily worries him.

Rust rides with Marty instead of taking his truck, and when the two men walk through the door of the Hart residence, Maggie smiles.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

* * *

When they're working at the field office, around the other detectives, they act like nothing's changed. Don't bother Rust none, he's a pro at undercover work, but Marty's a little more nervous about it. He pulls off the act just fine, but Rust can tell he's less comfortable at the office now. When it's the two of them in the car, doing leg work, Marty mellows out considerably. Not that he's sweet to Rust all of sudden—the two of them are like empty honey pots, not enough sweetness for a spoonful even if you scraped the sides with a straight razor—but he's a lot less standoffish and rough.

They're on the way back to Lafayette one afternoon, from suspect tracking in Lake Charles, when they stop at a gas station to fill up. Marty uses the restroom and grabs them a couple Cokes from the convenience store, while Rust stands against the car and smokes. Marty peers through the store windows at him as he pays the clerk, stringing words together in his mind to describe what he's been chewing on the last few weeks.

The night Marty brought Rust home for dinner unannounced, the night of the hug, Rust stayed later than anyone could justify. No one, not Marty or Maggie or Rust himself, encouraged him to leave. They moved from the dining room table to the living room to the back porch where they sat around the table there and listened to the night buzz. They quit talking at some point and just let the silence be between them—Rust smoking and Marty nursing a beer and Maggie searching the stars. Eventually, she went on to bed and left the men alone together.

"You know, I never thanked you," Marty said.

Rust glanced at him, back to his old somber self. "For what?"

"This. Nudgin' Maggie in the right direction. She didn't mention it, but I know you must've said something to her, helped convince her to give me a second chance."

Rust was quiet for a beat, then put out his cigarette in the dish Maggie gave him for an ashtray he had on his lap and said, "She made her own decision. Thing you should know about women, Marty—ultimately, they choose us or reject us because of what they see in us. Men choose and reject women because of what they make us see in ourselves. I suspect that's one of the many reasons why we're all doomed from the start."

Marty just blinked at him, mouth ajar, and said, "I was trying to make this a nice moment of gratitude, and you respond with that."

Rust slid the ashtray onto the table. "Best be going. Thanks for having me over."

He stood up and Marty stood after him and before Rust could go inside through the sliding glass door, Marty stopped him with a hand on his chest.

"Hey," Marty said, looking at him. "You did a good thing for me and my family, and I do want to return the favor."

Rust looked down at Marty's hand and back up at his face. "You figure out what that means yet?" he said.

"Not exactly. But I'll let you know when I do."

Since then, they haven't hugged again, but when they're alone together, they're easier about touch. Grip of the shoulder, hand on the back, pat on the knee, elbow tap to the side, brushing up against each other. They still give each other shit but the sharpness is slowly bleeding out of their jabs. Rust's been over for dinner again three or four times and Marty's taken him to a bar a handful more, after work, despite the fact that Rust tries not to drink much. Sometimes, they go to Rust's place with a handle of whiskey or a six pack of beer and sit on the porch steps outside the front door until dinnertime.

Marty may not be as observant as Rust, but he didn't make homicide detective in CID for nothing. He sees Rust, slowly, starting to lighten up. It's imperceptible to everyone else, hasn't been going on long, but Marty's pretty sure he sees it.

"I was beginning to think you'd drowned in the toilet," Rust says, when Marty comes out of the convenience store with the Cokes. "Or is there someone pretty working the register?"

"Fuck off," says Marty, casual like. He offers Rust one of the bottles and gets behind the wheel of the car.

Rust gets back into shotgun, sticking the Coke between his thighs and squinting through the windshield as Marty drinks some of his.

"Rust."

"Yeah?"

Marty pauses. Unsure how this is going to sound or if he can get his point across without embarrassing the both of them. "About the agreement I made with Maggie... I just want you to know, in case it ever comes up, that I think I could be okay with it if you slept with her. I'm not telling you to do it. Not even really sure I want her sleeping with anyone else. But if she's going to be with someone other than me, I'd rather it be you than a random."

Rust stares out the windshield, unmoving, his mouth a flat line.

Marty doesn't look at him because he can't right now. "She prolly told you as much, but I thought you should hear it from me."

Rust glances down into the floor of the car and says, "Marty, despite the fact that I'm not critical of what you and Maggie are doing, I'm not interested in getting tangled up in it. Too many things could go wrong. And I'm not in the habit of screwing married women."

"Are you saying you have moral objections to the idea? Because I have a hard time believing that a man with your attitude about people and life could get moralistic about anything."

Marty doesn't mean to sound defensive, but he does, a little.

"What two adults decide to do in their marriage is their business. I'm just saying, it wouldn't sit right with me, regardless of your permission." Rust looks out his window. "I don't think of Maggie that way. Nor do I want to."

"Why not?" Marty says. "She's a beautiful woman."

"She's also my friend. You figure out how to be friends with a woman you're fucking, let me know."

Marty doesn't know how to respond to that. He's never had female friends.

Rust turns his head toward Marty but doesn't look at him. "Tell you the truth—I don't enjoy sex. As unbelievable as that may be to you."

Marty looks at him now, making a face like Rust just told him he's spent time on a UFO. His brain trips over itself, trying to choose a reaction. All he can come up with is: "What?"

Rust blows air through his nostrils and looks through the windshield again with a pinched mouth. "Drive," he says.

Marty sticks the car key into the ignition and turns on the engine. He looks at Rust in the seat next to him as he pulls the car into the road, thinking, _What kind of crazy bastard did I get stuck with for a partner? _

* * *

Maggie's thinking about dinner as she wipes down the kitchen countertops, when Marty comes home from work. The girls are outside playing in the front yard as the sun slowly sinks toward the horizon line, light the color of honeysuckle flashing into the house through the living room windows.

"You know what Rust said to me today?" Marty says, standing on the other side of the island.

"What?" says Maggie, her back turned on him.

"He doesn't like sex."

She freezes.

"Can you believe that? Well, hell, I guess now I've had time to think about it, I can believe it. The man's had about as much interest in all those dates you set him up with as I have in philosophy."

Maggie turns around to look at her husband, face pinched and eyes wide.

"I just can't get over it," Marty continues. "What kinda man don't enjoy sex? What the hell is there not to enjoy?"

"Marty, what did you say to him?"

"Nothing. I was too stunned to even ask him what he meant."

Maggie sighs out a breath and slides her eyes to the window above the kitchen sink. She feels terrible now, for coming onto Rust that afternoon in his house. It was a mistake. She knew that as soon as she left. She thought he was tense about it because of Marty, but it didn't have anything to do with her being married to his partner. Rust didn't want to screw her because he doesn't want to screw anyone.

"Here's what don't make sense to me," says Marty, sitting down on one of the stools lining the island. "How's a man get married and have a baby if he don't like sex? Hmm? I mean, I may not be a fucking genius, but I'm smart enough to know that doesn't make sense. It don't even make sense physically. He at least must've wanted it the one time, if he and his ex-wife had a kid together. Unless he wasn't the real father."

"Ugh, Marty, how could you talk like that about Rust's family?" Maggie says, crossing her arms and looking at him. "Of course, his daughter was his. Of course, she was. Women have sex they don't like all the time. Somebody touches you the right way, you can get aroused, even if your head's not in it."

Marty gives her a look that's half confused, half disbelieving.

She almost rolls her eyes but doesn't. "That's all he said? He just dropped that on you for no reason and you didn't have a conversation about it?"

"Well, no, it wasn't for no reason... We were talking about sex at the time. After he told me that, though, we dropped it."

Maggie's head swims with a thousand possible explanations for why Rust doesn't like sex, curiosity about things like how long he's disliked it and what he feels when he does it, if it has anything to do with his ex-wife or if something, God forbid, happened to him. She wonders if he hates all sex or only certain acts. Does he dislike kissing too? Does he not like being touched at all? More importantly, has she irreparably damaged her friendship with Rust by violating his physical boundaries?

She needs to talk to him.

"I was beginning to think he was queer," Marty says on his way to grab the lemonade pitcher out of the fridge.

Maggie tilts her head to one side, hand on her hip, looks at Marty and says, "What if he was? You wouldn't be friends with him?"

Marty glances at her as he sits back down. "I don't know. I wouldn't have a problem being partners with him, any more than I already do. It'd probably be a little weird, but I could handle it."

"What does that mean? You have a problem with being Rust's partner?"

Marty sort of shrugs, an uncomfortable motion.

Maggie stares at him.

"I told you before, Mags, what he's like on the job. He knows how to tone it down in polite company, but when it's just us, he's about as charming as an electric chair."

Now, Maggie does roll her eyes. "Are you his friend or do you have a problem with him, Marty?"

"He's a hard man to like, is what I mean."

She watches Marty drink his lemonade, sunlight receding behind him, and says, "Yeah. I know what you mean."

* * *

Rust's home reading a book when Maggie knocks on his door. They haven't seen each other or spoken since the last time he joined the Harts for dinner two weeks ago, haven't been alone together since the last time she stopped by here, and while the dynamic between them has been good in Marty's presence, they're suddenly cautious, standing on either side of the entrance to Rust's house. She offers him a hopeful, apologetic smile, and he lets her in without asking why she's here.

He goes into the kitchen, sets his book down on the counter, and lights himself a cigarette. She stands across from him, giving him space, clasping her hands behind her like a shy schoolgirl trying to talk to her crush. Her hair's down and her cheeks are rosy. She's wearing a long-sleeved olive green blouse tucked into a floral print skirt that falls below her knees. Rust has always found her pretty, and part of him can't understand why Marty would want to screw around with immature twenty-something's who don't even have half the class and intelligence Maggie's got and aren't as good-looking to boot.

"I came to apologize," she says. "For the last time I was here."

Rust looks at the tile floor, bowing his head, the cigarette hanging from his lips. He knows without hearing it from her that Marty mentioned his little remark about sex, to her. He's not sure how he feels about her knowing that detail about him.

"I shouldn't have come on to you," Maggie continues. "Not without talking to you about it first."

"You were doing a little of both," says Rust, taking the cigarette from his mouth and holding it between his fingers with his arms spread and his hands against the edge of the counter. "We don't have to talk about it. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I think I did. I made you uncomfortable. And I'm sorry. That's the last thing I want you to be. Uncomfortable."

Rust almost smiles. "Sorry to disappoint you but that's all I've been for a hell of a long time."

He glances up at her, sees her pursed lips and something in her eyes—compassion, maybe empathy.

"I meant what I said," she tells him. "Marty and I are here for you. Not because we pity you but because we like you. We care about you."

Rust drops his gaze again and smokes, unfamiliar with being liked and cared about and unsure how to react.

"We could use some guidance about how to show you. If—if you aren't looking for sex, if you don't want a girlfriend, I won't try to push it on you anymore, but there must be something you do want. Something Marty and I can do for you."

She's taken a few steps toward him. Rust looks at her shoes: brown suede moccasins.

"No, I don't think there is," he says, quiet and subdued.

"Rust," says Maggie. "It's okay."

"I appreciate your intentions—but there's nothing I want anyone can give me."

She's silent for a long beat. "You could spend more time with us. You're always welcome in our home. Anytime. You don't have to call."

Rust just nods, still staring at the floor.

"Before I go, I just want to know one thing," Maggie says. "Is there any kind of touch you want or that you're comfortable with? There's a lot of it that isn't sex, but I don't know where you draw the line... I want to be clear."

He hesitates, then finally looks up at her. He takes a drag on his cigarette to calm himself down. He's thirty-seven years old, and he's spent hardly any time thinking about how he likes to be touched. Nobody's asked him until now. Marty's the only person he's ever told about disliking sex. Not even his ex-wife knew that.

"Kissing's all right," he says, his voice small and still quiet. "Everything up to that."

Maggie nods, staring at him like she's got nothing else to pay attention to.

Rust doesn't know if he can say it out loud, but then the words come out. "I do like being touched, I just haven't met anyone who wanted to without making it about sex, except my d—"

He chokes and shuts up, the wave of emotion taking him by surprise. He used to look forward to coming home from work all day, just so he could hold Sofia in his arms and pace around the nursery with her until she fell asleep.

Rust bites the inside of his lip and turns his back on Maggie, looking out the window above the kitchen sink.

A long silence hangs between them, until she says, "Is that something you want? From me? Or Marty?"

Rust remembers Marty's hug and Maggie's hand on his jaw, her kiss. Does he want those things? Does he dare want them? Does he dare want anything good anymore and risk having it snatched away again?

"I—I don't know," he whispers.

"Well. If you decide you do, please ask. I'll talk to Marty. We can give you what you need, Rust. You just have to give us permission."

Rust stares out the window into the bluish gray light of an overcast afternoon. He feels like he's been drowning for so long that he resigned to his fate, and now someone's thrown him a lifesaver. His desperate desire to grab hold of it surprises him.

Maggie turns around and starts making for the front door.

"Maggie," he says, peering over his shoulder.

She stops.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," she says.

Soon as he hears the door shut behind her, he takes a deep breath.

* * *

It's a Saturday night, the air outside seductively mild in springtime's short breath. The Hart children are at two different sleepovers, Maggie's soaking in her bathtub, and Marty's at a bar with Rust. They're sitting side by side, backs to the room. Rust's nursing a beer, and Marty's got three empty shot glasses in front of him and a Long Island Ice Tea in his hand.

Marty, Maggie, and Rust went out to dinner together—burgers, fries, and pie at Mel's Diner, nothing fancy—before the men split ways with the woman. Marty couldn't help notice Rust smiling a lot as he sat across from the Harts in their booth, the other man's body language relaxed, a lightness in his eyes and his voice. Maggie ordered a strawberry milkshake, and at one point, Rust reached out and casually swiped his finger through the whipped cream, licking it off with a lazy grin. Marty told him a story from his rodeo days, one that Maggie hadn't heard in years, and Rust looked at him like the image of bull rider Marty Hart in chaps and a cowboy hat was just about the funniest thing in history. It felt like the three of them were high school kids hanging out. It was a good time, better than Marty's had in a while.

"Who the hell were you, fifteen years ago?" he says to Rust. "I'm real curious. What was College Boy Rust Cohle like?"

Rust sips on his beer and doesn't answer.

"Prolly just as full of yourself as you are now," Marty guesses. "But not as depressed. At least, I hope not."

"I was just a kid trying to find his place in the world," says Rust.

Before he became a cop, before he met and married Claire, before the birth and death of his daughter, before he killed a tweaker in cold blood, before four years of deep undercover narco work, before drug addiction and his mental hospital stay—Rust in his early twenties was smart, hopeful, not happy go lucky but a far cry from pessimistic or miserable. He wouldn't have been friends with a young Marty Hart, would've found him grating and obnoxious. It hits Rust that in a weird twist of luck, the horrors of his adult life so far and their influence on his personal evolution made him into a man more suited to Marty's company.

"Christ," Marty says, turning at the waist to look at him. "That almost sounds like humility! I can't be that drunk."

"You don't have to tell me who you were in college," says Rust. "I knew inside of a week, after we met."

"Oh, yeah?"

"A jock."

Marty snorts and takes a drink.

Rust slides his eyes over onto his face. "Mediocre student when you tried, borderline failure when you didn't. Big on parties. Alcohol. Insatiable lust for pussy. Shit, I'm surprised no one saw fit to have you neutered."

Marty lifts up his middle finger, sort of grinning despite himself. "You're such a fucking asshole," he says, not offended in the least. "I bet you graduated a virgin."

"I wish," says Rust. "All the sex I had in college was pretty bad."

Marty shakes his head, still unable to completely believe that Rust dislikes God's gift to mankind. He's got a pretty good buzz going on now, and he's going to have at least one more drink before they leave. He's not the one driving.

"I'll have you know," Marty starts, "that the only girl I was seeing my last two years in college was Maggie Ann Hall. And no, I did not cheat on her. Could hardly see straight, I was so crazy for her back then."

Rust thinks about that a moment, then says, "Sad how things change, isn't it?"

Marty looks at him, tempted to be angry for a split second before catching Rust's meaning. "I still love her."

"Never said you didn't."

They're quiet for a couple minutes.

"You don't realize how long the rest of your life really is, when you're twenty-something," Marty says. "You make a promise to someone meant to last forever... there's plenty of time for you to screw it up."

Rust pulls on his beer and says, "There are no happy endings, Marty."

Marty swallows, facing the bar, his emotions scrambled. "There can be. Some people—"

Rust doesn't try to argue. He knows he can't talk Marty out of optimism any more than Marty can talk him into it.

An hour later, they're both drunk, Marty worse than Rust. The bartender offers to call them a ride, but they decline, insisting they're good to make it home. If Rust can make it on the highways for miles, hallucinating and high out of his mind, he can sure as hell make the ten minute trip to his house a little bit drunk.

He pulls the truck into his driveway, past the ass end of Marty's car parked on the curb, and the two men wander inside. Rust pours them both a tall glass of ice water to sober them up some.

They're standing in Rust's kitchen, heavy on their feet, not even talking. He doesn't know why, but all of a sudden, Rust wants a hug. He wants to close the space between him and Marty, between him and all other human beings. Intellectually, he knows that's impossible, but like most people, he wants some temporary illusion of unity. Something to fill the bottomless void where his baby used to be, where everything good about him used to be.

"Marty," he says, before he knows what's doing.

There must be an edge to his voice, because Marty straightens up off the counter and turns around to look at him with concern in the creases of his brow.

"I—I need... Will you..."

"What is it?" says Marty, looking more focused than before. "You okay?"

Rust reaches out and curls his fingers into Marty's shirt. He closes his eyes and tries to center himself. He can taste his loneliness: White Shoulders perfume, Jim Beam whiskey, mashed bananas. He almost gags on it, swallows and tries to breathe.

"Rust?" Marty steps closer, in front of him now. He puts his hands on Rust's shoulders. "Rust. Look at me."

Rust opens his eyes and finds Marty looking at him. He's still clutching his partner's shirt. Breathing labored, his stomach in knots.

"Talk to me," Marty says.

Rust clenches his jaw and takes a deeper, more deliberate breath. He shakes his head, as if to apologize or shrug off his experience like it's nothing.

And somehow, Marty just knows. He pulls Rust to him, wraps both arms around the leaner man, and hugs him like he wants Rust to feel safe. Rust's eyes flutter shut again, all the tension seeps out of his body, and he curls his arms up around Marty to lay his hands flat on the other man's back. His cheek's crushed against Marty's neck, bottom half of his face tucked into Marty's shoulder.

Marty's warm, almost hot, and smells like aftershave and beer and Maggie washing his clothes. He feels solid and strong and destructible, like the house he lives in with his family and the life Rust used to have.

"You're just drunk, 's all," Marty murmurs.

Rust doesn't want to talk, so he keeps quiet. He once told Marty that he tries to stay away from drinking because he used to have trouble with it; what he didn't say is that trouble amounts to all his emotions getting away from him, pain so raw and penetrating it makes him miss those three slugs buried in his side. He didn't tell Marty he used to sit in his daughter's empty nursery and cry in the dark, too drunk to stand up; Claire would just leave him there, let him fall asleep on the carpet.

The two men stand there in the darkened kitchen for a long time, holding onto each other. Rust feels like he could fall asleep on his feet. He can feel himself sagging in Marty's hug.

"You just need to sleep it off," Marty says eventually, voice gentle and calm, like he's trying to comfort one of his young daughters instead of a grown man.

He finally lets go of Rust and ushers him into the sparse living room, to the mattress on the floor. Rust sinks down onto the mattress without hesitation or protest, lying on his belly with his face in the pillow and his feet still in his shoes hanging off the end.

Marty sits next to him on one side of the bed and looks at him. "You're some kind of mess, aren't you?" he says.

Rust is too drunk, sleepy, and disoriented to argue with him about pity. He wants to tell Marty to call Maggie to pick him up or to call a cab home, but he doesn't feel like he has the energy or the brain power to talk. He lies there expecting Marty to get up and walk out.

Instead, Marty starts to rub Rust's back with one hand. He doesn't stop until Rust's dead asleep.


End file.
